By Jason C. Marshall (jcmarshall@sympatico.ca) from notes taken from Brian Lumley's Necroscop series.
"Master? Sir?"
There was a movement from one corner and a pile of flesh and bone shifted slightly. A mouth grew upon one shattered face.
"Here, my childe, here."
Janvier gasped in awe. Though her sire had obiviously been pulverized beyond imagination he was healing and reforming before her very eyes. She knew his mastery of Vicissitude was great, but this was beyond anything she'd seen.
As she quietly watched he slowly reformed into the tall, skeletal person she called her sire. He shook his head and leaned in heavily on a table.
"Blood, childe! Bring me blood!"
Janvier quickly hustled over to the storage locker and grabbed a large plastic bag from the cooler. She quickly brought it to her sire, who sank his fangs into the blood bag with rampant gusto. The bag quickly drained and she brought another. He devoured it in as much time.
"Enough, I need to rest."
"What happened?"
"I had a visitor who saw it fit to remind me of my place."
Janvier blinked. Her sire was one of eldest of the Tzimisce still out of Torpor. What could do this to him.
"I see you are curious."
"I've seen your powers, sir --"
"-- and you wonder who it was? The Regent perhaps? No. None so petty as him. No. Perhaps the True Black Hand with their time stopping Bujah? Not them either. No, this was a visit from our fathers."
The word was spat out in vile contempt.
"Fathers? You mean?"
"Yes, my childe, the Wamphyri."
Mages and Garou have fathomed that the Wamphyri's world was once like ours but a small black hole drifted through their system, tearing the moon asunder and redefining the axial tilt of the world.
Called The Source by visitors from our world, the Wamphyri world is divided into 5 parts: the northern Icelands and southern Furnace Lands, Starside, Sunside and the Barrier Mountains.
When the world was shifted it ended up in a highly oblique rotation.
Night and Day last 3 of our days on their world.
The only sentient inhabitants of the Source are the Szgany, humans who travel the vast plains and forests of Sunside, the Trogs, sub-humanoid creatures who live within the mountains, the Thyre, cousins of both the Szgany and the Trogs, who live within subterranean settlements in the deserts at the borders of the Furnace lands, and the Wamphyri, hideous vampiric creatures who live in aeries, tall, stack-like towers, created from the remains of various creatures that the vampires feed off, in the rocky plains of Starside.
The Wamphyri are a strange race of vampires, for their vampiric nature does not stem from a curse from God. Instead upon their world are what are known as vampire swamps, from which hatch strange parasitic organisms. These parasites graft themselves to a host, usually an animal and change it, making it more powerful and intelligent. Usually animals stay away from the swamps, and the first animals to be taken over were wolves, hence the legend on their world of direwolves.
As with all things, eventually a vampire parasite grafted itself to a human and thus were created the Wamphyri. Wamphyri are both blood drinkers and flesheaters. Nothing pleases them more to devour a still living creature. When a parasite infects the host human it gains certain abilities. The first and most startling is the metamorphic ability of the flesh. Able to morph their bodies into almost any desired shape, Wamphyri have been known to turn themselves into huge monsters that defy imagination, airfoils of flesh to glide from aerie to aerie, and even vast horrific wolf-like beasts. The Wamphyri prey on the Trogs and Szgany for food, labour, and fuel sources. The Wamphyri waste nothing of their prey. Some are eaten, some are reduced to being fuel for fires and yet others are reduced to their component parts to used in horrific experiments that make what the Tzimisces do seem laughable and light. The Wamphyri all possess the discipline Metamorph. Through the use of Metamorph the Wamphyri can metamorphically transform a part of or his whole body to a degree. He might create large membraneous wings, like those of a flying squirrel, so that he can glide from tower to tower, or he might shift his eyes so that they become larger and more capable of seeing in the dim light of their caverns, and so on.The more powerful ones control, the better control one has over ones body.
To assist them in this strange usage of Metamorph, the Wamphyri clan have all learnt the skills of Metamorphics, a knowledge of biology, physics, chemistry, and alchemy mixed together. Through this skill the vampire better understands the ways of the body and its various uses, it has also allowed them to create various biologically changed creatures for servants. The most common of which are the Trogs, who preform the duties of cleaning, attending to feeding habits of their masters and so on. Other constructs have been cartilage creatures to form walls, stairs, windows and so on, gas creatures, whose lungs have been modified so that draw air into the towers and circulate in after warming it in their bodies, water beasts, whose veins have been changed so that they carry water, and then had them lengthened so that they can carry water all through the tower. Many other such horrific travesties, and chaotic creatures have been created by these evil vampires. The most powerful of their creations has been a creature known as the Warrior. A large ball of grey flesh-like matter, the Warrior can grow weapons, pseudopods, wings, etc, all for the purpose of combat. The Wamphyri often create these things for gladiatorial games.
It is was in the later part of their history that the first white hole opened within their world, a Void Engineer experimental umbra drive had backfired, ripped open the hole and deposited the Mages in the Source. Though the four Void Engineers fought valiantly, they were eventually taken by the most powerful of all the Wamphyri, Shaithos. Shaithos questioned the mages for days on end, threatening them with fates worse than death if they did not comply. Eventually one broke and soon Shaithos learned of our world. Shaithos realised that the White Hole was a one way trip when his first scouts entered and couldn't return, so he had the broken Void Engineer create a similar hole again, thus creating a way through and back. He further had the Engineer move the portals to a deep underground cavern within the Romanian mountains.
Shaithos thanked the Void Engineer by dining on his still living flesh.
The second incursion into their world came mere months after Shaithos's first scouts had returned, telling tales of a world of pure Hell, where the sun shone for ten to twelve hours then hid for a equal amount of time. Being used to vast nights, the Wamphyri were not to inclined to enter our world.
When a group of Tzimisce vampires entered their world, seeking the knowledge of these strange kindred. Shaithos was to happy to agree. He infected the group with his own Wamphyri flesh.
Wamphyri breed differently then the kindred of our world. When a Wamphyri bites a non-parasitized creature, it can decide whither or not to leave a piece of its metamorphic flesh within the victim; if it does not, then the victim will not change. However, if the Wamphyri leaves a piece of itself, then the creature is changed. The metamorphic flesh melds with the normal flesh creating one of two things. If the victim is alive then it creates a Ghoul with the metamorphic powers. If the victim was dead or died due to the bite, then it rises as a true vampire, possessing the metamorphic powers. Both creatures are automatically bloodbound to their creator due to the presence of this flesh of its, within them.
In rare cases, a Wamphyri's parasite extrudes an egg, usually once every two or three hundred years. This egg can be implanted into a host, be they human, Ghoul or Vampire. The egg will turn the host into a full fledged Wamphyri.
With the Tzimisce now inflicted with his flesh, Shaithos sent him and his kin back to the Hell Lands, where they developed their infected flesh into a discipline known as Vicissitude. This means that the Wamphyri are the creators of the Souleater disease. The souleaters that are created are eventually pulled back to the Wamphyri's dimension where they are used to create warriors, act as majordomos or feed the masses.
Wamphyri come from two distinct bloodlines, that of Ferenc and that of Shaithos. From each has sprung a long line of progeny, each with their own egg. These progeny all have their own little alliances but in the end are all loyal to their sires. Wamphyri have travelled to our world only twice in the past, and only two of their kind actually exist upon our world.
Belos, one of Shaithos's get, maintains a small aerie-like stack within the cavern where the portals lead to upon our world. His stack acts a way station for any of Shaithos's or Ferenc's get and soldiers to stay at in order to acclimatize themselves to our world. The only other Wamphyri to live upon our world is one by the name of Mendula Farscry. Mendula is a master sorcerer, and would have been considered to be the 'father' of a third bloodline, if he'd ever bothered to give up his egg to any prospective candidate. Mendula instead journey to our world in order to conduct research and better his own understanding of the kindred of our world.
"What? Who? Huh?"
Sabbat: They are already infected, and soon they will be ours. Only their Black Hand stands in the way.
"The who?"
Inconnu: These kindred are the true masters of their race and the most dangerous foes we will face.
"We know who you are. We know from where you come."
Ravnos: These kindred stem from the Szgany of the Hell Lands. They will be the first to fall.
"An evil is returning. An evil of ages past, long forgotten."
Whether or not there are any Wraiths in unknown, as no necromancers have travelled there.
Garou and Mages can access the Source through various travels through the Umbra till they reach the realm. The Nuwisha have visited this realm once, but determined that it was corrupt and not one of the Gaia realms they seek.
Vampires can only access this place via the underground gates.
Wraiths can only access this realm by travelling across the vast seas of the Oblivion. None who have ventured for the Source have ever returned.
Changelings could possible access this realm by travelling Trods or by the Dreamlands.